Faith Kates, the iron-willed co-founder of Next Model Management who discovered Gisele and turned the agency into a billion-dollar empire, abruptly vanished from the company last week—without a goodbye, without a press release, just a cold internal email saying she was “stepping away effective immediately.”
The trigger? A freshly unsealed batch of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails that suddenly surfaced in a Miami federal court filing, with Kates’ name appearing in messages that insiders describe as “career-ending.”
What exact words made one of fashion’s most powerful women torch three decades of work overnight?
For more than three decades, Faith Kates stood among the most powerful women in global fashion. As the iron-willed co-founder of Next Model Management, she didn’t just discover Gisele Bündchen while the future supermodel was still unknown—she helped transform Next into a billion-dollar empire that shaped runways from New York to Milan.
So when employees opened their inboxes early last Monday to find a brief, icy internal message—“Faith Kates is stepping away from the company, effective immediately”—the shock was total. No farewell. No press release. No public acknowledgment of the woman who built the company from the ground up.
Within hours, the reason for her disappearance began circulating quietly among lawyers and investigative reporters: a newly unsealed federal court filing in Miami tied to Jeffrey Epstein.
The documents, released as part of an expanded civil case, include a batch of Epstein’s emails that had remained sealed for years. Among hundreds of names referenced, one stood out with particular force—Faith Kates.
According to individuals who have reviewed the filing but are not authorized to speak publicly, Kates’ name appears in multiple email chains involving Epstein and his closest associates. No criminal charges have been announced. No legal conclusions have been drawn. But the language in the emails, insiders say, is “professionally indefensible” for a senior executive in the modeling industry—especially given Epstein’s conviction for sexual offenses involving minors and his documented trafficking network.
What has raised even more eyebrows than the emails themselves is the speed of Kates’ response.
Multiple sources inside Next say her exit was not the result of a prolonged boardroom battle or an internal investigation. Instead, it unfolded in less than 48 hours—beginning shortly after her legal team received advance notice of the unsealed materials.
“She understood immediately what those emails meant,” said one person close to the company’s leadership. “There was no need to wait for headlines or social media outrage. The mere existence of those messages was enough to end everything.”
Next Model Management has declined to comment on the substance of the court filing, confirming only that the company is “undergoing a leadership transition” and will “cooperate fully with any relevant authorities if required.” Faith Kates has issued no statement. Her representatives have remained silent. No denial. No explanation.
In an industry where power often operates quietly behind closed doors, that silence has only deepened speculation. Former colleagues describe Kates as fiercely controlled, highly strategic, and acutely aware of reputational risk. For someone known to manage crises ruthlessly, an immediate and total withdrawal suggests the contents of the emails—though still largely unseen by the public—may be devastating to her legacy, even if they never rise to the level of criminal liability.
The central question now is not simply what Epstein wrote.
It is how Faith Kates responded—and under what circumstances.
Until the emails are fully released, the truth remains suspended in the gray space between legality and morality. But in fashion, an industry built entirely on image, that gray zone can be more destructive than any indictment.
Kates’ wordless exit may be a final attempt at damage control—for herself, for Next, and for a legacy thirty years in the making. Or it may be the first sign that the Epstein fallout, years after his death, is still far from finished.
Because as more documents are unsealed, the real question is no longer who will be named next—
but who manages to leave before the truth is read out loud.
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